Citation

Description

Taiwan is a continental island, located between the southeastern coastline of mainland China and Japan’s Ryukyu Islands. With diverse terrain and wide range of vertical elevations, Taiwan has tropical, subtropical, temperate, and frigid climate zones. These unique geographical conditions, coupled with the effect of habitat isolation, gave Taiwan its high biodiversity.
The endemic species of Taiwan denotes the native plants and animals of Taiwan and its offshore islands such as Penghu Archipelago, Orchid Island, Green Island, etc. Even though the areas are small, the Checklist of Taiwan (TaiBNET) lists around 50,000 valid species scientific names. Among them, 8,000 are endemic species (including endemic subspecies and varietas), showing the abundance of Taiwan’s endemic Species. TaiBNET also provides information on these species, such as their scientific names (including authors and years), common names, and synonyms. Through Taiwan Biodiversity Information Facility (TaiBIF), the information on these endemic species are published and then shared and exchanged with other GBIF participants. Users can use keywords to link to other websites with relevant information. All these efforts will result in the circulation and utilization of information in the areas of research, education and conservation.